Catechumen Demo

First-person shooters need to be oozing with action, interesting scenery and feature a suitable difficulty level, in order to avoid becoming repetitive and boring after playing it for longer stretches of time. However, they can also get away with far less effort in some regards, as long as the shooting itself is fun and it provides the players with a challenge and a bit of excitement.

Catechumen is a first-person shooter with religious elements, in which you fight on the side of the believers and have to dispel an army of demons that attempt to take over humankind. By making use of powerful weapons and artifacts given to you by God’s own angels, you must shed the blood of evil creatures and save the entire world from being overrun with Satan’s children.

As far as the plot is concerned, the action takes place in ancient Rome and you play the role of a catechumen, which is basically a Christian undergoing training. As it happens, a great evil lurks deep beneath the city of Rome, where hellspawns have possessed the Roman soldiers. Moreover, as you keep on descending into the catacombs, more grotesque demons start greeting you, only to ultimately reach hell itself.

It is pretty difficult to have fun with the game, on the other hand, since it makes tremendous efforts to keep you unhappy along the way. A special mention goes to the artificial intelligence that governs the enemies, because they are incredibly badly programmed and respond wildly to the situation around them, not to mention the fact that they can see you through solid walls and doors.

Moreover, bugs plague the experience, including game-breaking errors that leave you unable to pick up certain items and continue playing. The visuals are not bad, considering the age of the game, but the level design is poor and most environments simply lack any kind of care or detail. The same goes for the sounds, which are annoyingly repetitive and badly implemented.

In the end, Catechumen fails to impress through anything, except maybe for the rather intriguing plot and the similarities it shares with something id Software might have developed. However, the game is barely playable and there is nothing to keep you invested in the action, regardless of how much you might like God.